Questions about sleep

10-01-2008, 10:53 AM

Ok so my lo likes to sleep, and I'm worried that it's too much. My Public Health Nurse told me the average 6 month old should wake up at about 7:30am have a 20 min nap in the morning, a 2 hr nap in the afternoon and be in bed by 7:30pm. There is noooo way my lo can do this. She gets up at about 8:30am. I'm lucky if i can keep her awake for an hr before she wants to sleep agian.. That's basically our routine. Up for an hour down for and hour all day. Because we sleep in the living room (and my husband works shift work) dd and me usually go to bed at about 10 at night. I'm not sure what to do to help her get into a "normal" routine. I would put her down earlier but she will NOT sleep alone. I wear her for naps to keep her close however it's increadibly challenging because there can be no noise! Any little noise she hears she has to look around to see were it's coming from (she's very curious). Does anyone else have a baby like this? how did you deal with sleep time routine?? What are your routines with your 6 month old??

i'm quite sure your little one did not the read the same manual your public health nurse did. my kids didn't, either. in my opinion and experince, her suggestion that a 6 mo. old should sleep 12 straight hours at nite w/almost 3 hours of naps during the day is abnormal. ds2 has NEVER napped for more than 1 hour, and he's now 2 1/2! each child has their own circadian rhythms. some are nite owls, some are happy nappers. if getting into a regular routine is important to your family, then you can try to establish some regular sleeping, but if her body is not adjusting, it may cause you more headache than anything else. if your family is okay w/her hour on, hour off routine, then go w/it! she won't be doing that when she's 5. i promise!

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Yes, I agree with Paxmama.
These generalizations of what a child or baby 'should' do only stress a mama out. There is no general child!
My 6m old would take nap whenever he could get it. His 4yr old brother had a knack for keeping him up!

With any of those things, without other issues in combination, why worry if he is happy and healthy otherwise?

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She use to be very happy all the time but lately not so much. For the first 15 min she's happy but within 20min she tired and rubbing her eyes, and nothing will make her happy. She doesn't want on the floor, to be held or any toy that she usually likes. Most times the only way to keep her happy is to put her back to sleep...I'm wondering if it's a growth spurt. A couple of people have suggested an iron deficiency. I've made an appointment with her gp for Oct. 9. I'm just tired of all the comments: "she's tired already!? She just got up?" or "it can't be nap time again, are you sure this is normal?"
I'm also getting a lot of flack that i can't do nothing while she's asleep (as she very curious and want to know what every sound is). I'm stuck in a rocking chair either reading or watching tv. SO the chores get left and my house is a mess. Her sleeping routine is just kind of proving to everyone that babywearing doesn't make my life easier it makes it harder. I guess i'm just feeling frustrated about the situation.

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i think you may very well be dealing w/a growth spurt. 6 mos. is prime time for that. try to rest in your mommy instincts, know that YOU know what's best for YOUR baby, let others comments roll off your shoulders. you will find as a mom that there are periods of time when unimportant things like dishes are left to pile up while you attend to the all-important needs of your family. during these times, try to just keep one room straight and spend most of your time there so you don't have to face the mess elsewhere. i assure you, this early baby stage will be gone before you know it and you'll be wishing you could spend your days rocking your baby!

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Just a suggestion, I may be wrong! I think your daughter isn't get enough sleep overnight and is making up for it during the day. If she is going to sleep at 10pm then she probably needs to sleep until 10am, so yeah 12 hours (even if it's a feed interupted 12 hours like my 12.5 months old daughter still does!). What are your nights like? Do you feed back to sleep on wakings? If so, have you tried feeding back to sleep to resettle at 8:30am to get her to sleep until 10am? Also, it's very hard having a 10pm-10am routine cos by 10am it's too light and noisy outside and that's probably why she's waking at 8:30am and then tired for the rest of the day. If you could do 7pm/8pm-7am/8am it would probably make things easier. Any chance you could go to bed at 8pm?Then all she might need is a 30-45 minute nap about 2 hours after intially waking up in the morning and then another 2 hour nap about 2 and a half - 3 hours after that. So yeah, pretty much what your nurse said. Anyway, may be way off and it might be iron deficiency or something else but just thought I would make another suggestion! Hope your gp appointment helps.

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I agree w/ the pp that you might want to try putting your little one down earlier in the evening and see if it makes a difference. Every family is different, but for us, going down by 7 makes a huge difference.

Both of my children were/are very sound and light sensitive when it comes to sleep. I use blackout shades and then blankets on top of that for windows and use both sound machines and fans to make white noise.

Regarding her sleeping only on you for naps...this is a personal issue for you to decide upon. If you really want or need her to sleep somewhere else (which is a completely okay decision! We all have other things in life we NEED to get done! ) just try wearing her down to sleep (or whatever you normally do to get her asleep) and then lay her down in a very nice sleep inducing environment. She may only sleep for 15-30 min, but eventually, I'd be willing to be that she'll slowly start to sleep longer and longer stretches.

The other thing I was going to ask is do you swaddle or did you ever? Some babies like swaddling well beyond the normal newborn period and it might help for naps....

My 9mo old was very similar to your DD. (Still is in some ways) and there are whole weeks that he only takes 30 min naps all day long. But then there are days where he gets 1 hour naps and the occasional day where he sleeps 2 hours for his morning nap.

Every baby and family are different, but I bet if you play around w/ things a bit, you'll find something that works for both of you.

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I've tried going to bed earlier but if my husband is on midnights she will not go to sleep (as we are sleeping in the living room on a single bed, i am hoping to move upstairs soon). She tends to wake up when he gets home. I've started letting her stay up for 10-15 min to play with dad then i nurse her back down to sleep until 10am. I want her to stay sleeping with me. I'd rather not have her sleep away from me. The tenants before us did not take care of bug problems (and our landlord says it's up to us to take care of). It's getting much better but i don't want her sleeping alone ( i guess i'm slightly parinoid now). I doubt she would let me. I've tried putting her to sleep (i'll wait till she's got that limp limb dr. sears talks about) and setting her gently in a "safe" area for her to sleep and she immediatly wakes up and fusses. If it's not quite immediatly (say 1 min) she starts reaching for me in her sleep. When she doesn't find me (i've tired using a shirt with my sent and other devices) she wakes up in a panic screaming and it takes me a while to calm her down. ahhh well i'm sure we'll get it figured out sometime. Is it possible to help her learn to sleep without being parented to sleep. For example if we're sitting in the livingroom and she's tired to lay her head down and fall asleep. My mom tells me my brother was like that. When he was tired he would just fall asleep. My lo needs wrapping, pacing and will only sleep for me. Family is telling me that i've made her dependant on this routine and i need to help her adjust to a different routine. I always thought this was a personality thing. THat she just needs help by being parented to sleep. How do you other mothers feel about this??

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Oh my goodness - this sounds just like my little girl! She's about a week older that your little one - born 03'14'08 - but I wore her in a sling for months and she wouldn't nap at all unless I was wearing her or holding her. And then, one day did just what was suggested by bluebonnet - I started putting her down for a nap in her then unused crib. At first, she'd wake up right away. Eventually, she started sleeping for about 20 or 25 minutes. Now, two months later, there are days when she still sleeps less than half an hour at a time. But there are also days when she sleeps for 2 hours - today was one of those blessed days! One thing that might have helped was that before I started putting her in her crib, I would get her to nap by lying down next to her on the bed and letting her fall asleep without my actually HOLDING her. She protested a little bit, but I'd hug her and nuzzle her and she'd realise it wasn't that bad and then go to sleep.

Also, this may be an AP no-no, but can you put her in a stroller and take her for a walk when she's sleepy? (for a while, my back couldn't take the sling) I know she's sound and light sensitive, so's mine, and oftentimes the stroller doesn't work for me at all, but just every now and then, it does and it feels really great to be outside and moving.

I'm also finding that the little ones just figure it out for themselves after a while...

I think if you ALWAYS used a stroller or some other baby device that would be an issue. Selected usages in moderation is alright. A baby who is never held or touched by humans, other then a diaper change, is the extreme on the other side....

I would put my first in the stroller after I nursed him to sleep and then pushed him in the house to the room I was in --so he was close by when I was working on something. Now we have 3 strollers, and 6 baby carriers! Including a double stroller! There seems to be a situation suitable for each one too. We are going to the zoo on Sunday, I am definitely bringing the double and the Ergo.

Every parent child pair has constant figuring out to do to be responsive and in balance.....